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They had to equip it to go "vroom vroom" so buyers felt they were getting their money's worth. I got to drive a Viper once. You had to keep an eye on the speed gauge all the time. My Ford Focus starts screaming and making odd whistling sounds at me at higher speeds. It's a good safety feature.

Your auto insurance must run more than my mortgage. Do you get missile launchers or artificial intelligence with that trim level?

I think insurance was about $600/year or so. Probably because they figure I can only drive one car at once, don't have any at-fault accidents ever, got my last speeding ticket in 1988, and have EVD certification and yearly quals.

If they only knew.....

This poor thing has far far less AI than the Tesla, which as far as I can tell is mostly a super-fast iPad with 4 doors. The Tesla computer stuff was pretty nifty, I will concede. The AI on this is mostly devoted to the "car" part of it - suspension control, braking control, steering, traction, engine - you can press a few buttons and completely retune the car anywhere from sedate-ish highway cruiser to sporty road-course machine to NASCAR-mode to a pure drag-racing beast. So in a way it's frugal, as it potentially replaces 3-4 other autos.

I think insurance was about $600/year or so. Probably because they figure I can only drive one car at once, don't have any at-fault accidents ever, got my last speeding ticket in 1988, and have EVD certification and yearly quals.

If they only knew.....

This poor thing has far far less AI than the Tesla, which as far as I can tell is mostly a super-fast iPad with 4 doors. The Tesla computer stuff was pretty nifty, I will concede. The AI on this is mostly devoted to the "car" part of it - suspension control, braking control, steering, traction, engine - you can press a few buttons and completely retune the car anywhere from sedate-ish highway cruiser to sporty road-course machine to NASCAR-mode to a pure drag-racing beast. So in a way it's frugal, as it potentially replaces 3-4 other autos.

I'm going to tell my wife about the new way I've come across to save us a fortune.

The wife's car has about 120,000 miles on it. We bought it new and it's been a good car. But when we moved we sold my big truck, 3/4 ton diesel. There are times when we miss the ability to haul some larger items. Our other car is her old Porsche. So we are thinking a full size SUV would be handy.

When we travel we generaly take the plane and rent a car, so we currently don't put on as many miles as we use to.

They had to equip it to go "vroom vroom" so buyers felt they were getting their money's worth. I got to drive a Viper once. You had to keep an eye on the speed gauge all the time. My Ford Focus starts screaming and making odd whistling sounds at me at higher speeds. It's a good safety feature.

Somehow youtube served up to me a bunch of videos of a guy who likes to go to drag strips with his Tesla. It was quite amusing watching his silent car beat the pants off most of the other guys with their screaming muscle cars.

If Americans expended even a fraction of the energy on civic engagement that we spend on consumer ideology, our democracy would be much healthier. Can you imagine people camping out to vote? -- Charles Roberts, Amherst, Mass., Nov. 25, 2006

This talk has brought back memories of my first car, many years ago.......a very used VW Beetle. The battery was hanging half out under the car; the horn would honk every time I turned left, and the driver's door would pop open too. There was a hole under my feet , so my mechanic fixed it as cheaply as possible......which meant adding a metal plate underneath with screws.......which would dig into the sole of my left shoe. It wouldn't always start and I'd have to pop the clutch while being pushed down the driveway by friends. It had no heat, so in the winter I had to carry a scraper for the inside of the windshield so I could (sort of) see out. But it got me wherever I wanted to go........most of the time. Ahhh.....good times!